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JS Date Get Methods

By · Reviewed & last updated · Part of JavaScript Tutorial

Once you have a Date, you read its pieces with get… methods. Each comes in local and UTC versions — pick deliberately.

Local-time getters

MethodReturns
getFullYear()4-digit year.
getMonth()0–11 (January is 0).
getDate()Day of month, 1–31.
getDay()Day of week, 0 (Sun) – 6 (Sat).
getHours / Minutes / Seconds / MillisecondsTime pieces.
getTime()Epoch milliseconds.
getTimezoneOffset()Minutes from UTC (positive = behind UTC).

UTC versions

Same names with UTC in the middle: getUTCFullYear(), getUTCMonth(), getUTCHours(), etc.

Example

JS
const now = new Date();

const local = `${now.getFullYear()}-${String(now.getMonth() + 1).padStart(2, "0")}-${String(now.getDate()).padStart(2, "0")}`;
const utc   = now.toISOString().slice(0, 10);

now.getDay();              // 0..6  ← weekday
["Sun","Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat"][now.getDay()];

now.getTimezoneOffset();   // e.g. 480 for PST (UTC-8)

Days between two dates

JS
function daysBetween(a, b) {
  const MS = 86_400_000;
  // UTC math avoids daylight-saving glitches
  const u1 = Date.UTC(a.getFullYear(), a.getMonth(), a.getDate());
  const u2 = Date.UTC(b.getFullYear(), b.getMonth(), b.getDate());
  return Math.round((u2 - u1) / MS);
}
Gotcha: getMonth() returns 0 for January. Forget the + 1 and your display dates are off by a month — one of the most-reported JS bugs ever.

Example

Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p id="out"></p>

<script>
document.getElementById("out").textContent = "Hello from JS Date Get Methods!";
</script>

</body>
</html>
Try it Yourself »

Exercise

Get the year of a Date.

const y = d. ();

Test yourself

Q1. `getMonth()` for January returns…
Q2. `getDay()` returns…
Q3. Get the epoch milliseconds of a Date with…

Discussion

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